A/N: Hello again! This is the second one-shot for my OCs, Lykos and Fenrir. Just to let you know, none of these one-shots are chronological and, more often than not, will have various time skips. Hopefully they're not too confusing!

Oh, and I've decided to use them in a sequel of another story I'm doing, but these one-shots will have enough of their own content to satisfy curiosities. :3

Please read, review, and enjoy! :)

Characters in order of appearance: Fenrir, Lykos, boy, boy's friend, boy's sister, North.


The Boy Who Cried "I'm Not Alone!"


Fenrir awoke to the click of a lighter in the still night air outside the cave. Stretching his giant front paws outward, the wolf's muscles strained against the urge to sleep once more. He shook his fur and watched as water from the melted snow beneath him splayed off of his belly fur. Not hearing a complaint, Fenrir comprehended with disappointment exactly who he would find at the entrance. The acrid odor of a thousand chemicals reached his nostrils and Fenrir sneezed painfully. How Lykos could ever deal with those pathogens in his body, the black wolf could only guess. Reluctantly standing, Fenrir padded toward the moonlight and sat back down just before turning the corner. The mental pique of attention told the wolf that Lykos knew someone was watching him.

Why are you not in bed, young one?

"I'm not young anymore," Lykos coughed roughly. "I'm technically legal here, you know," the boy added with a chuckle. It was true. He stood now, taller than the wolf─ a huge feat in itself─ at the long-lived age of eighteen. Naturally, he'd been eighteen for a couple decades now, or perhaps longer. It was hard to tell. Age did not completely escape the boy, nor did it for Fenrir, but it would show occasionally. It had been a long five hundred years in progress, but the boy had finally grown to the point where he may not grow any longer. For a long time after that, Fenrir hoped, the boy would become stable in his immortality. Although spirits revived by the Man in the Moon never changed, there were others who had. Lykos had never met them, however, and had no way of knowing that he wasn't entirely special. Nevertheless, Fenrir let Lykos joke about it for the sake of his sanity, lest he run away again.

Lykos had quickly realized he was no longer simply human after that first, fateful day. The then-twelve-year-old boy was eager to run back to tell his family about the many adventures on which he would embark. Fenrir didn't have the heart to tell the boy that the elder folk would pass through him, ripping away his entitlement to the physical world. Fenrir didn't have a whole lot of heart after the first Lykos... well, that's a story for another time. There was enough heart within the giant wolf to take the boy under his wing─ a purely metaphorical wing, Fenrir stubbornly insisted─ and care for him. Enormous potential, that boy had. And yet, he needed to learn that he could not live in both worlds, unless he was ever to be believed in, a fact which would come into play later only in definition rather than practice.

Fenrir couldn't sympathize, however. Ordinary people could see him... well, for the most part. Ever since the Second Lykos had come around, Fenrir's power had changed: he now could only look like various people's worst fears. His power had changed previously as well, but it depended on his pair. His original power concerned his fabled father, Loki the Trickster. Was he admitting that Norse humans had gotten the afterlife and supernatural powers-thing right? Of course not. Loki never existed, but his stories did. From them, Fenrir learned more about who he could be in this world. Naturally, it guided a purpose yet hidden from him. This originated his pairing to mortals, ritualized by guidance of the Man in the Moon who granted Fenrir permission to actively search out his goal. Through a companion, a familiar, the team would find their purpose together. Or at least, that was what was supposed to happen. Fenrir was not one for patience, but the virtue had continued to grow in him out of necessity.

You've been smoking since you were 300, the wolf huffed, warm breath billowing into the air.

"Better late than never, right?" Lykos shrugged his shoulders in an effort to keep warm as he took a deep drag form the cigarette. He'd be out another pack soon; perhaps he should lighten up on the pack-a-day habit.

But he could always do that later. He was immortal, after all, and had all the time in the world to quit.

Ignorant pipsqueak, the wolf mused, eyes beginning to droop lazily.

"You're words are slurring, O wise one," the boy snuffed out his cigarette in the damp ground. The burning filter hissed as the moisture overtook the hot ashes beneath his boot. The truth was, Lykos was out here because another nightmare had entered his slumber. But it didn't seem to affect Fenrir the same way. Lykos wasn't even sure Fenrir had had the same dream or even a dream at all. The wolf looked unperturbed, distant, and above all, very sleepy. "You should go back to bed."

Will you be alright? The wolf's eyes snapped open from falling asleep.

"I just needed some air," Lykos lied, shivering.

Not clean air, apparently, the wolf wrinkled his nose at the cigarette butt and padded back inside the cave. Winter would be here soon and the boy wouldn't stay outside for long. As much as he didn't like to admit it, Lykos always curled up to Fenrir's side and covered his body with the wolf's tail when it got cold out. Of course, when true winter settled in, they'd have to find a warmer place─ usually an abandoned log cabin or if they felt like a vacation an abandoned beach. But since Fenrir was still a wolf after all, the former option was the usual plan. Fenrir's golden eyes adjusted to the dim light of the cave as he settled back down into his resting place. Rolling his shoulders and pawing at the ground, Fenrir's muscles relaxed again and sleep came soon afterward.

Lykos sat down on the cold ground with his knees kept to his chest. Looking out over the Canadian Rockies, his eyes were wide and receptive. Anything he could do to stay away, he would try. Maybe another cigarette? Digging his pack out of the jacket's breast pocket, Lykos peered inside with an unsatisfactory twitch of the lip. There was one left. He figured he could wait a few minutes. It would be a few days before he could get anywhere near a town again. Last time they went down to feed the boy's addiction (it is not an addiction, Lykos insisted), the shoppe owners were frightened half to death and carted off by city officials for the account of a wild bear rampaging through their store. None of that had happened, but Lykos couldn't make them see otherwise. Why couldn't people see him? Believe him? Not just as their fears, but for the boy that he surely still was? It frustrated him to no end, and his hopes were all but dashed.

There was one person who had raised those hopes. Well, two, actually, but Lykos preferred not to think about the other one. It was someone even Fenrir didn't know about, for the shepherd boy guarded these thoughts well. Those thoughts only ever occurred to him while Fenrir was off at some distance doing various wolf things and Lykos was left to look after and entertain himself without any interaction. Needless to say, right now was not one of those times.


There had been a young boy, back when Lykos was three hundred years of age, who could almost see him. Almost. It had been too close and hard to tell, honestly. The wolf and the boy had traveled far, far through the North American continent─ for they had heard the new territory was now being settled and they yearned to see newer places than the Scottish moors─ looking for excitement. (But how did they get across the Atlantic Ocean? Naturally, the answer is another story for another day.) The wolf, being what it was, found much of it enthralling. Lykos, on the other hand, found the lack of people peaceful yet disturbing. Sure, he wasn't being screamed at in pure misunderstanding every few hours, but that was one thing. Thankfully Fenrir could talk to him. Otherwise Lykos would have gone crazy decades ago. And yet, Lykos wanted a human connection above all. The promise of meeting fairies and spirits and rabbits sort of lost its charm when it didn't happen. They were around, Fenrir ensured the boy, but talking to them would be more difficult. Famous, Fenrir said they were. And busy, very busy. Always busy.

That's why Lykos had ventured into the village one day. He swore he saw a pair of very large rabbit ears bounding through the undergrowth. The boy's bare feet─ he had not gotten new shoes since outgrowing his centuries-old pair─ sped through the woods, following the imprints in the thin spring mud. Tripping occasionally on an upturned root, Lykos would stumble and his palms would scrape the dirt and scattered branches. But he didn't care. He was about to finally meet one of the mystical creatures Fenrir had told him about. And Fenrir wasn't even around. Boy, this was going to be a great story.

But as Lykos rounded an old oak tree, a pond sprung to his attention and he had to grip several branches to stop himself from falling into the water. It was bound to be freezing; the snow had only just melted a few weeks ago.

"It's probably not the best time to go swimming!" another voice yelled in his direction. A young boy's. Well, in all honesty the boy looked to be as old as Lykos did. He had mid-length brown hair and brown eyes and looked a little like Lykos himself. Blinking rapidly, the young shepherd took a moment to glean what the situation meant. The boy across the pond could see him, as another boy.

There were also two girls next to him. One looked to be the same age, with shockingly red hair that glowed orange in the pale spring light. Her eyes flitted in the direction the boy had shouted and her gasp could be felt deep in Lykos's mind. She couldn't see him as a boy; that was for sure. Lykos saw the older girl grab the second girl's hand─ this one was much younger and had the same brown hair as the boy─ and run back toward the house. The boy called after them, saying something unintelligible. Lykos hadn't heard human language in so long he'd forgotten the meaningful syllables. Fenrir's mental language was similar, but it was more felt than heard (of course nowadays Lykos preferred to talk back to Fenrir so that he wouldn't forget the human tongue again). The boy had an inkling of what the human across the pond said, but he couldn't be sure.

The brown-haired boy called out to Lykos and waved an energetic arm forward. Stupefied, Lykos scrambled slowly across the pond's banks, getting mud and sticks stuck to his clothing. Perhaps he could ask the boy for something clean. It had been a long time since he'd had any new clothes.

When Lykos was most of the way around, the boy ran to meet him. He seemed to ask something nonchalantly, but Lykos wasn't sure.

"Again?" Lykos's words were hoarse from lack of use.

"What's─ your─ name?" the boy tried again.

He's asking what I'm called, right? "Ly─" he stopped himself. If the boy knew who would he was, would he stop being able to see Lykos as a boy? Fenrir hadn't elaborated on this sort of situation, so Lykos was at a loss. He coughed and stood up straight. "Lucas. My name... is Lucas. Yours?"

The boy said something that Lykos didn't recognize, then, "I'mJacksonDoyoulivearoundhere?"

"What?" Lykos's mind struggled to make the connection in the language. Had he spoken this before?

"Do─ you─ live─ around─ here?" Jackson laughed. "Youprobablydon'tsinceyoudon'tseemtounderstandme."

Instead of asking again, Lykos kept silent. You idiot, he asked you if you were from this village, Fenrir's voice boomed in his head; the wolf must be nearby. Lykos itched to call out to him, but he didn't want to scare the boy in front of him. "No, I'm not... of here."

"Didn't think so," Jackson's voice was starting to make sense again, "youhaveafunnyaccent." And there went Lykos's comprehension skills. He'd have to kick himself later for this.

I can do that for you, Fenrir chuckled in his mind, somewhere far away.

Lykos decided to ignore both comments and try to continue on his own. He couldn't screw this up. "Uh," looking at his feet, he saw that Jackson had a basket at his feet, and that two more were over by where he had originally been standing. All three of the kids he had seen had these baskets. Peering inside, Lykos saw that they were filled with very colorful eggs. "Eggs of many colors... you collect?"

Jackson's brown eyebrows furrowed in amusement. "Yeah, they're from the Easter Bunny."

Lykos's ears perked at the information (a quirk he had picked up from Fenrir). Bunny was like a rabbit, right? He'd seen Fenrir hunt down some smaller ones. But was this one of those giant rabbit species Fenrir had mentioned? "Is he really... big? Tall?"

The boy in front of him laughed. "We've never seen him. No one has. Sophie insists she has, but kids will be kids, right?"

Lykos heard the word "kids" and was suddenly confused. "You are a kid."

"Well, so are you," Jackson pointed out. It was almost surreal to remember the fact that Lykos indeed looked to be fifteen, maybe sixteen. "Do you want some? I always find so many of them. I usually give them to Sophie or Verity, but I think we'll all have enough. You don't have any."

It seemed like an offer. Was there something Lykos had to do in return? Wasn't there something he was supposed to say? Why couldn't everyone just yip or howl or bark with a certain intonation? Surely that had to be easier. The urge to growl in husky gratitude was strong, but Lykos held it back. "Uh, thank you. What do I do with them?"

Jackson was laughing again. Was Lykos really this obvious? "You're funny. I like you. Do you wanna meet my family? I'm sure they'd like you."

Lykos heard the string of approving words and beamed. There was an instinct to sniff Jackson and lay down in the grass to show his gratitude, but Lykos felt that humans didn't do that. There was a faint recollection of being human in his mind and he was fairly sure that humans didn't act like wolves. The shepherd's palms itched to do so, since Fenrir had taught him the way of the wolf, but he swallowed it down and tried to speak again. "Thank you, but I think is that a not good idea. People don't really much... like me much." Lykos hoped his grammar was even slightly accurate.

"You'll be fine, Lucas," Jackson waved it off like it was nothing, "but you should probably let me do the talking." Lykos was becoming distressed. He saw the way the two girls had glared at him in horror. He didn't want to subject them to that. A friend was all he wanted.

"I..." Lykos's fingers were flexing and twitching nervously, "I don't want to hurt you!" He turned on his heels, dug in, and ran back into the woods as fast as he possibly could. The other boy tried to follow him, and succeeded for a good hundred feet, but fell behind soon after. Lykos heard him halt, gasp in shock, yelled, and ran back home. Lykos had an aching feeling in his heart that he knew what the boy had seen. It was too late to make friends.


Brought back to the present, Lykos stood and stretched his body, loose snow falling off of his shoulders as he pulled his arms over his head. A long, halfhearted groan made its way from deep in his chest outward as he held himself still. The mountains were unchanged during his reverie. In fact, that had changed very little compared to Lykos. His body seemed to grow and shift under their watchful gaze, persistent in all these years. He spoke to them when Fenrir was asleep, despite the knowledge that rocks and trees and grass and leaves could never return the call. At this time, being reminded of his cowardice, the crags and cliffs seemed to mock him. The despondence was effervescent and seething, so Lykos challenged it by flicking out his lighter and heading down the trail. Hopefully Fenrir wouldn't hear him.

As soon as he was far enough away, Lykos took the deepest, longest drag that he could out of the last cigarette, pulling his entire being into the action, and inhaled every element he could possibly suck in. The taste came to him again and his brain let off a wave that crashed into his unease and pulled it back underneath his consciousness. When he was a young human boy, the taste of tobacco and pipe smoke would make his nose wrinkle in disgust. Now it comforted him. Pulling the stick from his mouth, he held it between his forefinger and thumb, admiring the little cylinder for all that it could give him. It couldn't call him a coward as it burned into tiny, frail embers that could be snuffed out by his pinkie finger. Lykos chuckled at the thought and walked through the valley absentmindedly.

The light dusting of snow glittered in the pale waning moonlight above him. With few trees down here, shadows were hardly seen. Lykos's eyes, enhanced due to his attachment to Fenrir, glazed over the smooth landscape with content. His smoke curled up in front of him, twisting his vision for a moment. Nothing could be more pristine than this small area of the world.

Then a flash of light scattered the environment and shocked the shepherd boy, bringing him to his knees. He was about to turn around when giant, furry hands (maybe they were paws?) grabbed his shoulders and shoved him backward. But instead of landing in the snow, Lykos kept falling and falling and falling. Screams he hoped would carry to the cave where Fenrir laid never escaped the portal.

Lykos gasped when he finally collapsed with a thud onto something hard, but fuzzy and warm. His cheek was pushed up against his eye and told him that he was lying on his side. Focusing his eyes by blinking rapidly, more things came into detail. Next to his face were a million red fibers interwoven in an intricate pattern. Ah, a carpet. He was in a house.

A house? Lykos sat up as straight as a pin and glanced around worriedly. His stomach suddenly heaved from the movement. Was he motion sick? That hadn't happened since the first time he rode Fenrir. Ah, but that didn't matter at the moment. The house! It was a large, luxuriant house. The wooden beams overhead held the walls upward into a very high ceiling covered with glass windows. The warm air filled his lungs and his muscles began to loosen. The feeling was very much welcome, his shivers subsiding as he stood slowly. His balance was wobbly, but he managed to grasp the back of a chair and steady himself. There was a long table on the right side of the room, but it was primarily empty.

Except for the really tall, wide man at the other end. "Welcome, Shepherd's Boy!" A thick accent echoed in the silent room.

Lykos jumped back defensively and growled. "Where's Fenrir?!"

"So I take it you don't want cookie?" The man pulled his mouth into a fake frown. He fashioned an enviously long white beard and pointed toward a tiny creature on top of the table waddling its way toward Lykos. The little thing held up a large tin platter with a dozen or so cookies. The boy eased out of his stance warily and grabbed one, taking a tentative bite out of one. He was ready to spit it out if it happened to be poison. "How was trip?" The man continued.

"Nauseating, to say the least," Lykos's voice mumbled through the cookie crumbs. It was then that he realized he had had a lit cigarette before he came here and that it was gone. It probably slipped from his fingers when the blinding light surprised him. And that had been his last cigarette, too. Who knows how crabby he was about to get?

"Ah," man nodded slowly, "I use sack next time, yes?"

"There ain't gonna be a next time," Lykos warned, "if you don't tell me what's going on. Where the hell is Fenrir?"

"Wolf friend is back in White Goat mountain, no need to worry," the man waved it off like it was no big deal. He then stood─ well over six feet tall, maybe even seven─ and plodded toward the boy. Lykos studied the man cautiously. He also had tattoos trailing up his arms and a cutlass tucked into his waistband. Then as the man rounded the corner of the table, Lykos saw that there was a second cutlass. At least whoever this guy was, he seemed like a badass. Lykos would feel good beating him and escaping without Fenrir's help. "You can call me 'North.'"

"Like the top of a compass?" Lykos lifted an eyebrow. "Do you have a brother named South? Cousin named East? Oh, what about a daughter named Northwest? Because let me just tell you now, that's─" Lykos mistook North's furrowed brows for one of anger "─that's a pretty name." No. No it wasn't. Dear Whatever's-Out-There, he wanted a cigarette so badly.

"No, no," the big guy bellowed in laughter that shook the floor underneath Lykos, "nothing like that. Is just me and yetis. Oh, and the elves, but pay them no mind." The large bear-like animals stood up on either side of Lykos, but in a nonthreatening manner. He took them to be the yetis. Their paws (or maybe they were hands?) hung at their sides, furry and strong-looking. He'd be scared to face one of them on his own, that much he could admit. One of them grumbled something at him, but it must have been in a different language because Lykos could discern no relevant meaning.

"Yetis? Were those the things─ no offense, guys─ that shoved me in here?" Lykos peered sidelong at the yetis, but they didn't seem to be angry. They looked amused, if anything. And maybe that infuriated Lykos more. "How'd I get here? I didn't see any place this big in the valley."

"It was portal, my friend," North explained, "you are at ze North Pole! Music!"

Trumpets sounded off from opposite sides of the hall. At least a hundred more tiny creatures marched out with outlandish instruments and jingling bell hats. Lykos was thoroughly confused as they marched around him, catching under his feet and gibbering at him whenever he stepped in their way. Mumbles of apology were cascading out of Lykos's mouth as he tried to get out of the mess. When he couldn't take it anymore, he yelled, "Stop!"

The music died awkwardly. "Why do I care if I'm at the North Pole? Don't get me wrong, it is impressive─"

"Thank you," North managed to cut in.

"─but I can't stay here. Bring me back to Fenrir. Or bring him here. He'd tear you apart if you dared to come near me." Way to go, princess. You sounded like you could totally fend for yourself.

The man called North laughed with a sense of jolly. "He would do no such thing to the Guardian of Wonder."

The name rang a bell, partial pun intended. Lykos wished now that he could remember the stories that Fenrir had told him a few hundred years back. But memory couldn't always be concrete and retrievable. "The what of what?"

"Close," North tapped Lykos's nose with an over-sized forefinger, "the Guardian of Wonder: Santa Claus, as you may remember."

That name clicked. The boy suddenly found himself stumbling backward in his surprise. He had talked back to the man who gave children presents every year. Lykos had been one of them. This guy was older than he was by hundreds of years.

"Am I on the Naughty List now?" Lykos tried to redeem himself.

"You are not record holder," North pondered, "but certainly second." Oh, great. At least he wasn't first. Although Lykos thought that if he was to make a name of himself, he'd much rather be first on a list than second.

"Who's first?" Lykos was impossibly curious.

"Bah, some winter spirit messing up things," North acted like it wasn't important. "But is not why I brought you here. I'd have brought wolf too, but yetis are scared of him. Not sure why."

Lykos could imagine why, that was for sure. Fenrir could be frightening and fearful when he wanted to be, and he knew it all too well. One time, during the first hundred years of Lykos's endless childlike wonder, he had attempted to follow Fenrir into a dangerous, spirit-and-other-scary-things-not-named infested bog rather than wait at the banks for him to return. Although it had only been a firm reprimand for not following orders in retrospect, the wolf had been furious, his eyes gleaming with intensity. The muscles rippled underneath his fur and Lykos was scared he was going to be eaten. Instead, a powerful swat was initiated and sent the boy backward, slight gashes appearing across his midsection when he inspected it later. Now he knew to do as the wolf said. Well, within reason, of course. He could do whatever he wanted otherwise.

"Is it to give me the coal in person?" Lykos winced, hoping that wasn't the case. It seemed a little extreme.

"No, eh," North was grappling with his words, "is about Manny. Man in Moon, as you may know him. He spoke to me last night, told me certain someone was messing with children's minds. Was not you, was it?"

Lykos blinked in surprise. He hadn't seen humans in years─ spare the few times he'd gone out to steal cigarettes─ let alone speak to them. That hadn't happened in, well, two hundred years now. Two hundred years...

"Naturally, of course it was me," Lykos lied sarcastically, "because I can control what I look like to petrified little diaper-wearing squishy things."

"So you stay out of sight, no?" North guessed it. He must have seen the dejection on Lykos's face, because the jolly guy continued. "Look, Shepherd's Boy─"

"Don't call me that," the boy corrected, "I prefer Lykos."

"Lykos─ is big verld out there," the man spread his arm wide, resting the other on the boy's shoulders. He didn't move them and Lykos didn't stop him, "there will be people who cannot speak to you, or even see you, but Manny has plan for you."

"I know, I know," Lykos twisted out of North's grasp, "he told me that, too. Like five hundred years ago, in fact. That's all he ever told me, besides my name. If I didn't have Fenrir, I'd be a batshit crazy lunatic by now, if not earlier."

"You should feel lucky, some spirits did not have it so easy," North warned (little did he know this description also included Jack, who was only 200-years-old at the time, but no party in this story understands this... yet).

"Yeah, well next time," Lykos looked around the place for an exit, "make your yetis look up better info. It wasn't me scaring kids. I'm telling the truth this time."

North nodded and took a portal globe out of his pocket. He whispered something and then tossed it in front of Lykos, nodded to let him know he could leave. Lykos impatiently sent his regards to Santa Claus and stepped through the portal, glad to be out of there.

"That's what I was afraid of," North muttered helplessly as he paced away, further into his Workshop.


When Lykos found his way back to the cave, morning light began to spread out over the valley below. Before he walked into the cave to sleep, the boy took his time to admire nature's handiwork. The oranges and yellows splashed onto the dreary and dull landscape, adding depth and life to a rocky canvas. Sighing, Lykos wished he had a cigarette to properly appreciate this ever-changing masterpiece. But he couldn't withstand the growing ache in his temples, and thus disappeared into the cave. Fenrir lay, still unconscious, in the same spot as he had been earlier. So much for my sleeping schedule, Lykos thought as he lay himself down against Fenrir's side.

You're the one who wanted to smoke, Fenrir's sleepy mental voice echoed as Lykos drifted off, ignoring the rest of the world.


A/N: Fenrir has the three S's that I favor in so many characters: sass, salt, and sarcasm. Perhaps you'll see more of that in the next one?